Roasting your own coffee from the raw green beans is not that hard now there are some home roasting resources available in NZ.

First, some background (which will make sense by the end)

When I first started roasting, I had to specially ask the roasters where I used to buy my coffee for some green beans, they would sell me small quantities - 500 g or so and they charged quite a bit for it.  That was about 8 years ago.   A mate of mine at work (University of Auckland) was also in to coffee, and, to cut a long story short I'd been roasting my own successfully and I weaned him off using Illy pods - developing and roasting a blend for him.  He couldn't believe the difference, and started roasting the blend himself.  At that stage we were using popcorn makers.

We decided we should try and see if we could get our green beans cheaper and better selection - we found that we could by being nice to one of NZ's biggest coffee importers....  But still there was very little resource in NZ for home roasters like us and we often thought about setting something up.  And now the story really starts - he had the resources, and did set up the business.  Not only does he sell green beans (lots of different origins), but roasters, espresso machines, grinders - all sorts.  And there is a lot of useful information on the website about how to start roasting using simple options like popcorn machines.

Amongst a few other things, I've developed some of the pre-blended mixes that they have available and am involved in cupping (tasting) new beans.  I also go to answer questions and drink coffee at their regular Home Roasters Demo days...

So, here's where to go: Green Bean House  http://www.greenbeanhouse.co.nz/, Grant Clendon is the man (he drinks far too much coffee, but don't tell him that I said that).

Click on the menu bars - Home Roasting - Getting Started (I think I've written some of these instructions, sometime...  )
Choose your green coffee origins or pick a blend - there's tasting notes for each.

The easiest thing to try is a popcorn maker, if you do - make sure you have a 1200 watt one, lower power ones won't get hot enough and even 1200 W ones struggle in winter when ambient temperatures are low.  And they do make smoke.  Lots of it, and chaff.  Lots of it. You can't do large quantities at a time in a popper - but it will start you off and help you decide if you want to invest in a better roaster.

There's a significant cost saving in roasting your own, but when you're doing it right, you will be amazed by the flavour of true freshly roasted coffee (not immediately after its roasted though, it needs a good 24 hours to rest - if you can resist it). 

Its also worth noting that roasting coffee initially smells nothing like you'd expect - as the beans dry and begin to roast the smells are predominantly grassy, hot straw like aromas.  It's only towards the end that the caramel and coffee smells begin to develop.

And my final recommendation - go for a medium roast (city to full city, as its known in the USA).  At this level, the complexities in the different coffee's are possibly at their best, going darker results in individual flavours reducing and everything beginning to taste the same - just strong and bitter.  If you make milk based coffee's rather than have it black, you may enjoy a slightly darker roast as the sweetness of steamed milk softens the bitter flavours.

I shall now prepare for questions.... 

I've not heard of anyone using an ActiFry myself, I can check on Sunday at our home roasters day.  If you tried it you would not add any oil, it'd need to be dry. The action of the ActiFry would produce a drum roast style if it works. The problems I could envisage with one are the chaff build up as the beans roast, and the smoke. The beans need to get to around 230 deg C which is getting up there - not sure what temperature range the ActiFry has. Because the heat transfer is from the base, the beans would be sitting on it and turned by the paddle thing - you'd have to be careful not to burn the outside of the beans without roasting them through.
Another thing to consider is that coffee residues from roasting are significant, and could end up tainting the thing for any other use. If you use a popcorn maker for coffee, you'd certainly never use it for making popcorn ever...


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If you use a popcorn maker for coffee, you'd certainly never use it for making popcorn ever...
Well it makes crap popcorn anyway so that would be no loss 
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If you do use a popcorn maker, do follow the instructions we wrote on Green Bean House website to avoid any problems.
If you look at the instructions for a popcorn maker, I seem to remember them warning not to use them for longer than 5 minutes or something like that.  They will normally happily run for the time taken for a roast (approx 15 minutes) - when you decide you've got the level of roast you're aiming for (usually just at the onset of the 2nd crack) and you stop the thing, it's internal thermal cut out will activate and it'll have to cool for a time to reset and about 30 minutes or so before you'd be able to run it successfully for another roast.  When I was using poppers, I used to have 3 set up in a line, used in sequence so I could keep going - very time consuming.

After a lot of use, the plastic lids warp a bit but still work OK.  The trick with putting water in the butter dish stops it from completely melting itself, but you have to be careful not to put too much in and definitely not to let it spill in to the chamber.

I'm currently using one of the Behmor 1600 roasters (shown on the website), also have used a Gene Cafe before for several years so can comment on pro's and cons of each of them first hand if anyone is interested.